Zugzwang* or the compulsion to find a common baseline in sound

Abstract

This text is comprised of a multi-platform discussion between the members of the Zugzwang* working group between 03 July and 30 August 2021. Focused on notions of taking up space, acting, and intervening, this discussion expands on previous presentations and research by the group by highlighting how the participants' artistic and scholarly practices are engaged in making a difference within environments that are increasingly subject to anthropogenic devastation. As a discussion evolving over multiple platforms, this text is intercut and interwoven with questions, elaborations, and linkages, uncovering common themes, shared practices, and mutuallyunanswerable questions in our collaborative work. This discussion itself follows the logic of our working practices, documenting a generative exercise in conversation, which in this case led toward an increased sensitivity to timings and scalings of observation and action. Particularly, the capacities of the group's sound art practices when it comes to engaging with multiple sites, species and temporalities is put in evidence.